Please support our advertisers
The Free Market is Corruption
Submitted by Grace Kelly on July 18, 2008 - 11:45pm.
We, in America have had to learn the hard way what the oldest religions on earth had written, the pursuit of pure wealth is corruption and will eventually destroy our civilization. The religions have a name for it "usury", which has come to mean "excessive interest". I think it could also mean excessive profit or simply greed. The mortgage crisis is a case of greed killing the golden goose that lays the golden eggs. It shows that the neocon concept of unregulated free markets is totally wrong. And we are paying the price of painfully learning how important government regulation is!
Any sane person could tell you - that the worst possible thing that can happen to a house is for no one to live in it and for no one to want to pay for it. In a short amount of time, the house is worth less than a empty lot of land, then the neighborhood loses value. Then cities have to do more with vacant houses while have less property value to support city services. Any one holding the mortgage has lost all value. Yet the state didn't stop foreclosures and the federal government didn't act to keep homeowners in houses. Instead the government waited to act until the big companies are failing. It is too late. Let them fail. Only then will the financial markets start to care about what they own. Only then will the markets stop the foreclosures - for anyone paying anything in a house is better than an empty house. The government fix has to be to keep homeowners in houses, not let whole cities become more empty foreclosed houses.
The principle of caring is important in keeping a civilization. A homeowner has to care about the house to maintain it. A mortgage owner has to care about the homeowner and the house to take care of both. The mortgage owners, these days are so removed from what they own that they don't even know what they own or who they have lent money to. They can't even change the rules or stop the process that is draining away their wealth. How insane is this?
Let the big institutions fail or become nationalized. Poor and working people's taxes should not be used to bail out the rich as "institutions too big to fail". That way lies madness, where an institution only has to be big enough and then it will never be allowed to fail. Soon only big institutions will be left and they will still not be working properly. The gold-sucking-vampires have now sucked so much wealth into the top non-working part of our civilization that our financial institutions are failing. For if anyone looks, they realize there is no real substance.
For years now, we have been building financial institutions that separate people from what they own and the responsibility of that ownership. We have built speculation markets. Now the speculation markets are failing. The financial people call speculation failures, "burst bubbles". When "burst bubbles" are just rich people losing portfolio value, that does not affect real life. However when people lose jobs, when businesses cannot function and when homes become empty, that is a sign of a financial system that has stopped functioning.
Universities are partially to blame, they stopped teaching about the danger of monopolies, unregulated markets, speculation, excessive interest or excessive profits. History gave way to a wealth fantasy. The MBA logic was theme that only profit mattered. Along the way, truth stop mattering where fraud, lies, and deception are only bad only if you are caught. Then instead of doing a job, the job became managing the risk. And managing the risk, means someone else taking the risk. In this case, poor and working people are paying taxes, while earning less and less to guarantee the profits of the rich. In every way, the richest are killing the goose that lays golden eggs. The goose is very sick, but will the rich even notice that? Do they even realize there is a goose? Perhaps with the financial paper now involved, the rich don't even realize that golden eggs or a goose are involved in the financial process.
A more in depth rant is in Bill Moyers Journal.
»
- Grace Kelly's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Stumble It!
Right on!
None of us want the government making our sneakers, or cars for that matter, but in an unfettered world, the corporatists would control the markets, and we would have less choice. Unfettered capitalism is the enemy of democracy. This does not mean we hate capitalism, it just means we understand it and its place, as well as its limitations.
Anyway, whenever someone calls you a socialist, here is a brief,brief list of socialized programs that the fascists probably do not mind.
Post Office- Costs to delever to the outreaches of this country would be astroomical under a free market post. Notice UPS and Fed Ex don’t even try to do letter mail. Post Office is socialized mail delivery.
Our roads are socialized all the way–it would not be profitable to build roads to the outreacches of this country, so we would be a disconnected mess without socialized roads.
Our military is socialized. I suppose you want Blackwater defending you in exchange for a buck?
Our police, fire, etc. are socialized. You want your house saved or life protected only if you can afford it? Or Blackwater doing it, but only if it fits the bottom ine?
Our education system is socialized-It has many flaws, but you want only the rich to be educated?
Now, let us look at the enemy of Democracy and choice, which is unfettered and unregulaed capitalism. Regulated Capitalism is fabulous, but in an unregulated environment, capitalists job is to try to control the markets. Let to their own devices, and few giant companies would control the markets, leaving yoou with little choices. Anyway, look at all of the industries that have been deregulated under Republicans: S&L scandal, Enron, the Airlines, power companies in CA, banking industry (Fannie/Freddie/Bear Sterns), etc.
The true choice is not socialism or fascism, it is socialized democracy. Republicans would like fascism, but that has never worked.
Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignaation as those offended.
Foreclosed homes
Got one next door. Every two months we have the city come tell them to cut the weeds. Mailbox had been sitting on three tires for three months. Plenty of parties, garbage flows downhill into our yard. Foreclosure appears to take about a year, fortunately for the owner, a year will end in the winter months so no utilities can be turned off and they can't get the boot. No payments for over a year (including utilities) and maybe we'll get new neighbors. Our property values might be getting lower--but I'm not selling so who cares? This means lower property taxes in the meantime. Who am I kidding, lower property values will not result in lower property taxes--ha, ha, ha, ha!!!
Anyway, nothing could be worse to living next to this crap and I sure as hell don't want to PAY MORE MONEY to bail these chumps out. I'll take my chances with the next folks that move in--like the family who moved in up the street when that house foreclosed, after over a year of the same crap.
Truly Bad Neighbors
I am sorry for that. I do worry about copper tubing being stripped while house is vacant and the house blowing up, with possible effects on nearby neighbors. I worry the house may broken into and trashed, leaving a house that has to be demolished at taxpayer cost. I do agree that better neighbors in occupied houses is the way to go.